{"id":289,"date":"2015-07-27T09:26:10","date_gmt":"2015-07-27T13:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/demo.themesnoir.com\/borderland520\/?p=289"},"modified":"2018-02-11T15:55:15","modified_gmt":"2018-02-11T20:55:15","slug":"of-history-and-the-brand-consultants-of-today-part-1-of-2-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandlink.com\/index.php\/2015\/07\/27\/of-history-and-the-brand-consultants-of-today-part-1-of-2-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Of History, and the Brand Consultants of Today part 1 of 2: History"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My old colleague and friend Jeff Swystun recently published a post titled The Ideal Brand Consultant<\/em> \u2013 an insightful one, as everything that Jeff writes \u2013 which examines the characteristics that a good Brand Consultant should have today. I thought to add the other half of the issue \u2013 who actually is a \u2018brand consultant\u2019 today. I started writing, and just by chance had a conversation about the topic with a former colleague who entered the field of branding in 1999, at 23 years of age. I recounted a bit of the history of \u2018corporate branding\u2019 and she marveled at it \u2013 saying \u201cI had no idea<\/em>\u201d. She encouraged me to add such history, as \u201cit would be helpful for people my age to know how things came about, because that\u2019s not what one typically hears<\/em>\u201d. Yes, maturely modern (Corporate) Branding is a ~15 years old teenager, and the recounted lore of branding firms today is indeed a massaged version of history. And so here\u2019s a trip down memory lane, a relevant one because today\u2019s brand professionals are the result of a evo\/revolution that started three decades ago.<\/p>\n

Up to the 80s we lived in a highly discipline-segmented industry: Corporate Identity firms, general Design firms, Packaging firms, Annual Reports firms (yes young(er)friends, believe it or not there was such a thing), Naming firms, Editorial\/Publication firms, etc. \u2013 in addition to the PR, IR, Promotion, and Advertising agencies. The Corporate Identity business and the ID Programs it created consisted of some business & competitive review, a good deal of communications auditing, the very basics of Verbal Identity, and then a whole lot of systematic graphic design \u2013 a balance which was in fact reflected in the fee percentages for each of the parts. In all this, there really was no \u2018brand strategist\u2019 per se \u2013 as the combination of skills made up the outcome: \u2018the Identity\u2019 (not \u2018the Brand\u2019). Generally speaking, the Creative Director played the central role of translating the key notions of business strategy into visual elements; he\/she was a larger-than-life persona in the office and in presentations, and someone clients rarely argued with. As much as the business-based context was present, the Corporate Identity business was mostly Art — Art with a fuzzily-defined beneficial business outcome.<\/p>\n

Then in the early 90s two things happened \u2013 independently (in fact, different firms led each charge): the advent of a strategically-crafted Brand Platform which systematized the function and componentry of a Corporate Brand through a business-oriented lens (thank you JohnD & Co.), and the coming of age of the methods, and related credibility, of Brand Valuation which gave the discipline of Branding a factually measurable outcome (thank you, NoelP & Co.). And all this happened in the context of the internet and digital revolutions, the new dynamics of global businesses, as well as \u2013 and importantly – the buying up of all leading brand consultancies by communications conglomerates. 1992 to 1997: five pivotal years during which Branding started to morph into a Science (made then visible, yes, by the Art of Corporate Identity development).<\/p>\n

As Branding became more Science and less Art in order to address the more strategic function of Brand, it acquired additional breadth, depth, and definition, and the contribution and insights of a wide range of professionals from different disciplines became necessary. The late 90s saw Branding as a discipline becoming fair ground to professions who historically didn\u2019t do it \u2013 management consulting, PR and IR and Advertising, business operations, internal communications, change management, and anyone with an MBA or data analytics experience. All these left brains flooded the established brand consultancies, new firms were founded based on the new and more scientific tenets, others were forced to expand or contract, and many others closed, merged, or were acquired. The industry was in a bit of a turmoil: the historical Identity consultants fighting for their hard-won experience (no, they didn\u2019t exactly welcomed the newcomers) vs the new entrants with new and different perspectives (and no, they weren\u2019t exactly respectful of the old-timers). Some of the Identity professionals evolved and assimilated the new perspective, while others didn\u2019t and were swept away by the tide \u2013 in addition to an underlying generational changeover. A partnership between left and right brains made up the executive ranks of the large firms, and it was interesting to see how programs were run: if a program was led by a now-evolved Identity specialist the work was done mostly on feel and insights supported by a decent amount of facts, and if it was led by one of the new left-brained professional it was run in a highly analytical manner. Looking back at the CI\/Branding programs of the 90’s and early 00’s, I can\u2019t honestly say which outcome was \u2018better\u2019: they both \u2018worked\u2019, somehow \u2013 and we all got paid for the work.<\/p>\n

It is now 2000-2005 and the historical Corporate Identity knowledge settled into the new thinking, and the \u2018modern\u2019 brand consultancy was a reality. It needed to happen \u2013 the industry needed to evolve and the influx of different minds was necessary.<\/p>\n

Today, the industry and its philosophies are undoubtedly led by left brains. There are exceptions of course, but it suffices to say that the phrase \u201cMBA preferred\u2019 is a constant in large firms\u2019 recruitment ads for brand consulting positions. The way the work is generally done is with the left brains studying, analyzing, and mapping realities and trends and plotting a contextual business future, with then Verbal Creatives crafting beautiful words that excite the minds and get the heart beating faster and Visual Creatives painting memorably gorgeous visual landscapes. Left and right brains sit at the same table along the process (at times with the client and its customers). The core spark of inspiration can come from any of them, and it\u2019s then expanded by the contributions of all. This left+right brain team-based approach, and its outcomes, is an important issue in brand consultancies today \u2013 and one that can be seen in different ways.<\/p>\n

Santiago Iniguez, Dean of IE Business School, just posted a great article on teamwork and group-think: \u201cInsanity in individuals is something rare, in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule\u201d wrote German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche\u201d<\/strong>. He would have been unaware of the term, but in part, what Nietzsche was talking about was groupthink, a dynamic that\u2019s been variously defined as what happens when group members trying to avoid conflict reach a consensus decision without properly evaluating other viewpoints, whether by isolating themselves or suppressing dissent<\/em>\u201d. Conversely, a recent TED paper stated \u201ccollective creativity creates Innovation<\/em>\u201d \u2013 a view which by and large I agree with, with the personal caveat that not every team member is or is able to be \u2018creative\u2019.<\/p>\n

The partnership between left and right brains is not easy, and as much as our industry speaks of a seamlessness between the two types, it\u2019s not quite there yet and I\u2019m not sure it\u2019ll ever be: they are two different animals, operating according to different drivers, thinking in different ways, and with different priorities. I\u2019ll expand on this issue in Part 2 of this note, but for now let me just say that I don\u2019t have an MBA, and while I welcome the MBAs\u2019 intellectual rigor to map facts and keep ideas in check, I believe that data and its experts are not able and willing to dream, and that the mass, weight, and influence of the analytical content and its fact-based extrapolated futures has today overshadowed the creative thinking that used to be the engine of brand development. (E.J. – I\u2019m very much with you here).<\/p>\n

Brand consulting firms\u2019 management, left brains by and large, seems to believe that they can take bright MBAs and teach them \u2018the branding process\u2019. Get pragmatic people and teach them the soft side, the nuances, the non-factual aspects of \u2018brand\u2019? Well, I wish it were that easy. Business schools have trained them in the mechanics of a business, of a company, of its audiences, of its marketplace, of its competition, not in a Way of Thinking and certainly not to dream. No wonder the churn of young MBAs in brand consulting firms is so high: they either get fired because they can\u2019t deliver \u2018Brand\u2019, or quit because they get tired of the business-light approach (compared to their other employment options in other field of Business and Management Consulting).<\/p>\n

There you go \u2013 my two-cent 35-year summary. Now, let\u2019s get back on point: who is \u2018the brand consultant\u2019 today? Or better, who \u2018does branding\u2019 today? I\u2019ll share my opinion in Part 2, in a few days.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,17],"class_list":["post-289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-quernels","tag-roadtrip","tag-running","tag-sky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandlink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandlink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandlink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandlink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandlink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandlink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51090,"href":"https:\/\/brandlink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289\/revisions\/51090"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandlink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandlink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandlink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandlink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}